Grown for gold

How can Australia produce such world-class athletes? It all comes back to our produce.

Australia has topped the Commonwealth Games medal tally 12 of the 20 times the games have been on. We’ve been in the top three counties every time bar one; the first one. Yet we rank 14th in terms of population of the countries that compete. Per capita, there’s no country that comes close to our sporting ability.

Some particular regions seem to regularly produce great talent. So what’s the secret? How or why do certain areas grow these incredible athletes that represent Australia? It's probably no coincidence that some of Woolworths' best produce comes from these regions too.

Five months in production, the documentary-style films were directed by Paul Goldman with a stunning original composition by Ramesh Sathiah at Song Zu. Stills photography by Michael Corridore.

See the world differently

How do you make a bank's global trade and transaction services look innovative and unique?

Traditionally, global trade and transaction services (GTTS) are slow, primitive and depend on long paper trails. Trades are routinely carried out via fax machines. CommBank are set to change all that. Now CommBank clients have real-time visibility of their full GTTS journey on CommBank's award-winning online platform, CommBiz.

An innovative new product development demanded an innovative new art direction style. Mat and Carl Baker delivered on the photography and retouching of these intricate "globes". The world of global trade and transaction services never looked so good.

Let's stick together

How do you inspire a community to come together and support their local school?

Kids love stickers. And good communities stick together. This idea merges these two basic truths, and shows everyone literally and figuratively ‘sticking together’ for kids and local schools with Woolworths Earn and Learn.

15,000 schools and early learning centres got involved, earning over 300,000 pieces of equipment. That's a lot of microscopes.

Directed by Melanie Bridge. The oh-so-familiar and extremely catchy song was brought to life by Ramesh Sathiah at Song Zu. Stills photography by Ian Butterworth.

Celebrate your sister

How do you turn sisterly love into regular donations?

When she discovered that she had terminal breast cancer, Connie Johnson challenged her actor brother Sam to ride his unicycle around Australia to raise money and awareness for the Garvan Institute. Several years on, the Garvan approached us to develop a regular giving campaign so that the faithful followers of Love Your Sister could continue to fund cancer research. The solution was Celebrate Your Sister, a regular giving campaign where you could set up ongoing donations in honour of your sister (or your sister of the heart), and receive limited addition cards and ecards created by some of Australia's finest female illustrators.

Better pick up some...

Australians have been hit over the head with years of the Coles’ ‘down down’ campaign. This bashing has created the perception that Woolworths is more expensive.

This campaign had the intimidating challenge of changing that perception while building a new brand, while selling specific products.

The trick was doing it in a way that only Woolworths could – with warmth, authenticity and humanity. We created a family that was real and modern. For the first time, Dad is the main grocery buyer and cook, while Mum works and the kids are always hungry.

It helped brand results continue their dramatic move up, products sold up to 40% more, and social media gave our modern Dad the big thumbs up.

The making of

When it comes to film shoots, the art director has the best view. So whenever I'm shooting, I shoot a little as well. The candid moments, epic sunrises and the occasional charter flight on a prop plane.

The point when

How do you market Personal Loans in a financially responsible way?

Personal Loans advertising has often been criticised for encouraging spontaneous and conspicuous consumption. But the truth is that a CommBank Personal Loan can be instrumental at key points throughout your life. By creating the campaign positioning "The point when..." we shifted conversation away from "wants" to "needs" in a charming, humorous and engaging way.

The others

The consumer is not a moron

Start flying

How do you get busy marketing professionals to spend time learning online?

Google Partners is an online resource for marketing professionals who sell Search Engine Optimisation and AdWords. They can gain qualifications, download special offer vouchers for their clients and join a supportive and sociable community through Google+. While our prospects love Google, they simply weren't finding the time to get online and interacting with the Partners Portal. To entice our prospects to start interacting, we mailed them a remote-controlled helicopter. Remote-controlled helicopters are difficult to fly, but the more you practise the better you get - much like learning to be a Google Partner. The prospects went wild for the helicopters. Google+ filled with their posts, videos and the occasional plea for a new helicopter. And activity on the portal increased as well, as the prospects began to absorb the true value of being a Google Partner.

Awards: ADMA (AC&E) and Caples Winner, Directory appearance

Abandoned squid

Abandoned Squid - Yarra BayCrochet and giclée, 2009.(70cm x 40cm).

Photograph was exhibited at Corbis Creatives The Lens, 2009.

Abandoned Squid – TamaramaCrochet and giclée, 2009.(70cm x 40cm).

See inside

How do you convince huge businesses to change banks?

No-one likes changing banks. It's fiddly, time-consuming and complicated. So imagine how hard it would be if you were in charge of a multi-million dollar company? We mailed iPad minis to the CEOs and CFOs of some of Australia's biggest companies. Each iPad mini included a 100% bespoke iPad app - a uniquely tailored interactive presentation, created using insights from CommBank's incredible data capturing capacities. By showing CEOs and CFOs just how much CommBank already knew about their business, we were able to convince the toughest prospects that the shift to CommBank was worth committing to.

The antisocial network

How do you create an anti-social social network for cancer patients?

Research also shows that your social support during cancer treatment can increase your survival by 50% - that your relationships can have a physical as well as emotional benefit. (‘Social Ties Boosts Survival by 50 Percent’, K. Harmon, Scientific American, 28 July 2010.) The trouble is, the sicker you get from your cancer treatment - the harder it is to stay connected to all of these powerful networks.

‘Touchpoints’ is a social networking app – flipped. It’s so private, secure and sensitive to the patient’s feelings, thatit’s almost the ‘anti-social’ social network. It helps a cancer patient maximise their support network and the Cancer Council to support their cancer journey.

When I grow up

How do you sell financial planning to a generation who don't plan on retiring?

The baby boomers will never get old, right? So how do we sell CommBank's financial planning for retirement to them? The solution was to remind them of all the wonderful things they've been putting off "until they grow up".

Photography by Adrian Cook on his trusty old Rolleiflex, and retouched subtly but superbly by Cream.

The pub with no sport

How do you convince Australian regional pub owners that Austar's subscription sport is essential to their business?

Sport is the life blood of regional pubs. A pub with no sport would be like a pub with no beer. So, borrowing heavily from Australian country music legend Slim Dusty's hit song "The Pub With No Beer", we recorded a new track, "The Pub With No Sport" and mailed it out to publicans. We even had one of Slim Dusty's back-up singers record it for us.

Click 'play' to hear the new track the publicans received.

Awards: ADMA and Echo Winner

Unexpectedly powerful

How do you tell consumers that a new car is more powerful than its predecessor if you're not allowed to say so?

The new Volkswagen Golf GTD was more powerful than previous diesel models. However, we were not permitted to say so. So instead, we let the visuals do the talking, creating a mail pack was unexpectedly powerful.

Fragile

FragileBronze, 2010.(23cm x 18cm x 8cm).

21 days in Europe

Below zero

Shot in Europe in December 2014 and January 2015 in sub-zero temperatures.

14 days in Japan

12 days in India

Kit and kabooble

Kit and Kabooble is my travelogue through the weird, wonderful and sometimes sad world of breast cancer. Diagnosed with breast cancer at 30, and having been found to be in possession of a BRCA2 genetic mutation, I found myself suddenly faced with the loss of both breasts and the prospect of chemotherapy and started blogging. If I gained nothing else from this experience, it reminded me of how much I loved to write.